[1] News briefs: (a) the battle over passports being required in order to cross the US/Canadian boarder, (b) how you can watch television channels from around the world online for free, and (c) this show The Future And You has won the Parsec Award for Best Speculative Fiction News Podcast.

[2] While others debate whether or not the problem of global warming is real, the best selling author Kim Stanley Robinson is ready to move past all that and talk about solutions.

[3] Life throughout the universe may develop most readily within oceans, but does this universe contain more planets with oceans under their crust than under an atmosphere? (In this essay your host's logic forces him to conclusions which disturb even him.)

[4] Will the rise of eBooks allow authors to bypass traditional publishers and take away their piece of the pie altogether? The best selling author Alan Dean Foster has much to say on the subject.

[5] Is it possible to flip today's missile defense paradigm on its head and transform it into both a defensive and offensive weapon? (Your host explains how it can be done in this brief essay.)

[6] Collecting things as a hobby is a product of the rise of mass production: so explains Peter Stampfel who has been an avid bottle cap collector for 58 years. He also shares another song from his CD The Jig Is Up. This one is called The Squid Jiggin' Ground.

[7] Another installment in our serialization of the novel Bones Burnt Black, in this case, the second half of chapter 11.

[8] From the very beginning, our species has been radically and constantly modified by its tools. In what ways are the popularity of air travel and the Internet modifying our species now and for all time? The author, Sarah A. Hoyt--an unwilling frequent flier--draws some serious conclusions.

[9] How long will the comic book and manga industries continue to be flush with movie money from Hollywood? And what other trends are developing which will alter their futures? An interview with Stephen L. Antczak, an author of science fiction and of comics.

[10] Do traditional newspapers have a future? And if so, what is it? The Internet giveth, and the Internet taketh away. Tony V. Baughman, an experienced newspaper reporter, pulls no punches.